Living a Focusing life means understanding that the categories with which we understand the world are just approximations of what we directly encounter, and if we choose to, we can stand face-to-face what what is real: the here-and-now felt experience.
Tips for Focusing Alone
This week: the second of three ways of using art materials to support your Focusing alone. This one is called: Sketching the story of the session.
Draw (sketch, doodle) a quick picture of the felt situation. So if you’re sensing that the situation you’re Focusing on “feels like being on stage,” you would draw a little stick figure standing on a stage. The idea is not to draw well–three lines can draw a stage–but to capture the situation briefly.
Then use the drawing to help you stay with the body feeling of the situation. There may be a next drawing, and a next, perhaps connected by arrows.
This method is from an article that appeared in The Focusing Connection called “Focusing Alone with Signs and Maps,” by Sue Dougherty
Tips for Focusing with a Partner
What if you’re the Focusing Companion to someone who gets images easily while Focusing? What can you do to help them stay with the body sense of the images?
There’s something you can do that’s very simple and very powerful: Don’t say back the word “image” or the word “see.”
Focuser: “I see an image of a running horse.”
Companion: “There’s a running horse.”
This makes the image experience more immediate, and makes it easier for the Focuser to sense the bodily felt side of it.